Main Research Question:
How do Terrorist Attacks impact the Agendas of Right-Wing Eurosceptic Parties?
The Influence of Terrorist Attacks on the Agendas of Eurosceptic Right-Wing Parties
Table of Contents
- Background
- What is Euroscepticism?
- Relevant Policy Areas
- Rassemblement National as Case Study
- Text Analysis: How did Discourses Change?
- Conclusion
Background
In the modern age, the world has seen the finalization of terrorist attacks
More specifically, in the past decade, the European Union suffered…
- 17 attacks in 2015
- 33 attacks in 2017
- 24 attacks in 2018
Arrivals in 2015
Arrivals in 2017
These attacks affected both European citizens and political parties, which often hold the Union accountable, leading to increasing levels of Euroscepticism
But what is exactly Euroscepticism?
Sentiment of doubt and distrust towards the European Union and its policies
Can be divided into Hard and Soft Euroscepticism:
- Hard: opposition towards all areas of the EU
- Soft: opposition relates only to specific areas
Is it a new Phenomenon?
The first examples of Euroscepticism date back to the process of European integration in the 1950s
Prominent examples:
- British PM Margaret Thatcher
- EU enlargement in the 1990s
- Ratification of the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the common currency
What are the main Areas of Concern?
- Immigration (40% in 2018)
- Terrorism (19%)
- Financial Crisis (18%)
Freedom of Movement
2008-2012: 6.6 million citizens moved across States
Guaranteed between borders for people, goods, capital, labor, and services
Ensures equal access to labor market and profitable working conditions
Article 45(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union
Article 45(1)
Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States
Schengen Agreement
Established in 1985
Abolishes border controls on goods and on people
States can temporarily re-establish controls, as asked by many States in 2015-2016
How are Terrorism and Euroscepticism Related?
- Belief that liberal policies regarding immigration lead to an increase terrorist attacks
- Countries that suffered attacks blamed the EU for lack of prevention (i.e. more border controls)
- As Governments hold the Union accountable for the offensives, levels of Euroscepticism among Parties and the population tend to rise
- Parties exploit the feelings of anger to obtain votes
Case Study: the Rassemblement National
Main French Right-wing Party
Gained importance in the 2010s under the guidance of Marine Le Pen (34% of consensus)
EU seen as a threat for domestic jurisdiction and democracy
France should have its legislative economic, territorial, and monetary sovereignty restored
Calls for the abolition of the Schengen Agreement
Paris 2015 Terrorist Attacks
- 13 November 2015
- Terrorist targeted the Stade de France and the city center (i.e., Bataclan Concert Hall)
- 138 deaths and 350 injured
- Claimed by ISIS
How did this affect RN?
- Delaying in building mosques
- Ban on full-length swimwear for women
- Proposal of a charter against the admission of asylum seekers
RN Political Discourses
The Impact on French Political Discourse
Conclusions
Terrorist attacks carried out in the EU had an extensive impact on political discourses of Eurosceptic Right-wing parties, especially of Rassemblement National
In Particular…
- In the time period 2010-2022, topics most addressed in the French Parliament concerned security and the word French
- More nationalistic ideas and rise of Euroscepticism in French politics
- After the finalization of the Paris Attack, it is possible to observe a spike of the word terrorism in French political discourse
Methods Used for Text Analysis
Collection of relevant articles and speeches
Analysis of a dataframe for Rassemblement National
Performing LDAs and creation of graphs to display the most used terminology for the party
About the Data
- Dataframe containing French Parliamentary Speeches 1958-2022
- Selection of a timeframe between 2010-2022
- From the speeches in the timeframe, only a sample of 5000 texts was selected
- On these speeches, LDA was performed
- This is the Dataset that was analyzed
What is LDA and why is it Relevant?
- Latent Dirichlet Allocation
- Unsupervised Learning machine algorithm
- Assumptions:
- Every document is a collection of contents
- Each content contains different words which appear with different probabilities
Why is the Time-Trend Significant?
- Shows how the variable changed between 2010-2022
- Reflects the impact the attack had on French politics
- 2016 was the time in which the word terrorism was most used
Difficulties in Conducting the Research
- Lack of relevant dataframes
- Lack of information about attacks
- Difficulty in establishing the impact on policies
Questions for Further Assessment
- How is Immigration towards the EU going to unravel in the next few years, given the situation in the Middle East?
- Is the RN going to gain more support?
- Is the EU going to be composed of more Right-wing members?
- Is the EU going to be more cohesive or more divided?
Thank You for Your Attention!
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